User Profile

After watching Selma together my favorite librarian suddenly remembered this book to recommend. She described Christopher Paul Curtis as a Gary Schmidt-like author (another of our absolute favorites), and he certainly displayed that same ability to transport the reader into the inner life of a child, this one being Kenny, a middle-child of a Michigan-living African American family in 1963 America. The first portion of the book consists of getting to know each member of the family before the big brother, "juvenile delinquent" (ie. teenager) Byron, goes a few steps too far. The whole family takes a road-trip vacation to Grandma in Birmingham, Alabama. In the short amount of the story remaining Curtis tells the story with a powerful one-two punch. The jab establishes a dramatic groundwork that could have been an end to the story itself. Then comes the hook, building on that groundwork with a follow-up that took my breath away as it drew together the reality of the characters Curtis has written us with the stunning finality of history -- and then, in marvelous denouement, healing is made possible through pain, uncertainty, and a definite touch of inspiration.



Great as the story is on its own merit, it is made all the better by Levar Burton's sometimes soothing, sometimes hilarious, sometimes sobering reading of the audio.

This review is of the 1988 edition. A thought-provoking read in which John Bradshaw introduces some valuable concepts and terminology. It is centrally concerned with one's relationship with themself, wherein lies the defining characteristics that can be healthy or toxic shame. In my religious parlance it is concerned with humility, what Bradshaw calls healthy shame:



Healthy shame is the psychoilogical foundation of humility. It is the source of spirituality. - p. vii



During the course of the book the author considers shame as the underpinnings to a host of issues from the interpersonal to the intensely, dismally personal; the suggestion might be that toxic shame is at the root of almost all psychological issues. He embraces and extends such established successes as 12-Step programs, though he also refers favorably to dubius programs like Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a few other pop-psychology ideas that might have more of popularity than proof.



I particularly enjoyed the concluding chapters that focused on the role of shame in relationships. The book examines the means by which I can identify negative components of my previous marriage and confront those present in my marriages. What to me was the coup de grâce that I'd been waiting for to give this a stamp of approval to my spiritual sensibilities was the conclusion in which Bradshaw discusses service. Enacting service, he points out, is the inevitable result of becoming a fully realized individual, and for this reason is the concluding step of 12-step programs: upon balancing of the self, the desire is to share with and serve others in ways that can help them achieve the same. Had the book failed to conclude on this point I would likely have finished reading on a note of disappointment and skepticism. Instead, I can recommend this book generally to anyone interested in self-improvement, concepts of humility and self-confidence, and improving understanding of the struggles of themselves and others around them (especially understanding the addicted and the self-deprecating).

Fine treatment of the ambitious task of defining "story," considering literary, Cinema, and theatric media. Leitch clearly lays out many of the challenges, including with the fiction/non-fiction vagueries, as well as teleographic (having a designed message or point) vs discursive (having a tendency toward continuing indefinitely), and described stories as being definitively concerned with the struggle between these two opposites.



My critiques first: being written many years before the concept of cognitive narrative would be a term, I still wish he would have more carefully considered the difference between narrative (narrated) and story (the inchoate form that exists before mediation and narration).



The treatment the book offers would have been wonderfully aware of new media in 1986, discussing soap operas ("narratives without an ending") and classic films. I spent several chapters imagining how interesting would be inclusion of modern film, show series, and video games. I also especially enjoyed the chapter on character, in which he insightfully addresses that story characters are NOT people.



Although Leitch doesn't quite manage to answer his title question in a clear fashion, he illustrates that narratives are often about the experiencing of them. The experience of this book was likewise very worthwhile.

Published two years before [a:Gary D. Schmidt|96375|Gary D. Schmidt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1212433377p2/96375.jpg] acclaimed [b:The Wednesday Wars|556136|The Wednesday Wars|Gary D. Schmidt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442044636l/556136.SX50.jpg|2586820], Lizzie Bright is a historical novel I found at first reminiscent of [b:Johnny Tremain|816870|Johnny Tremain|Esther Forbes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529294679l/816870.SX50.jpg|2683165]. However, while both are New England Americana, the similarity stops there; this book is not patriotic or set around any well-known historical events. Instead it is steeped in Maine bay-culture where fishing, lobster-catching and oyster-hunting are the daily bread of life, along with strict religionism that Turner's family, led by his preacher father, was hired from Boston to implement. Though there is not slavery in the North, a severe stigma follows "negroes," who are viewed as the cast-away ne'er-do-well inhabitants of Malaga Island.



It took me a chapter or two to get a taste for what I was reading, with less striking characters than Wednesday Wars or Okay For Now, but it grew on me and I soon realized that I was reading something of high quality. Schmidt's prose doesn't shine -- the functionality of it is his style -- but his story-crafting is where the pearls are buried. As significant as the individual characters is that of "The Town," really led by the masters of commerce and the old-boy religionists who inform Preacher Buckminster what he should preach and think and endorse. While I won't here recite any of the plot, I will point out that this book is very much about the life cycle (including Darwin's work) of both people and towns, but that while it gives a fair reckoning of "survival of the fittest," it also seasons it with humanity. I was shocked when I realized in the second half of the book that no punches are pulled here; terrible things happen without apology. And yet, despite it all, it ends with a distinct rising note that seems to say, "Life goes on, and even with its scars and wounds, it might just be richer than before." This book has the rare distinction of inculcating alongside the character development of the protagonist, Turner, the development of the reader. I can't help but feel that my awareness and perspective on life is as impacted as Turner's by his having "touched a whale" and throughout everything else that symbolic moment shone as a beacon.